November 12, 2008
Michael Barrier has posted an unpublished appreciation of Carl Barks and his creation, Uncle Scrooge McDuck. For those of you playing at home who are unfamiliar with Carl Barks, his Uncle Scrooge comics were eventual the basis/inspiration for the animated TV show DuckTales. Mr. Barrier goes into some detail about the creation, motivation, and evolution of this now-classic character.
Snippet:
As Barks put it in a 1974 interview, “He had lots of money, but he wasn’t a criminal about it.”Of course, a real billionaire who had made himself rich from Montana copper wouldn’t have plunged into the gold fields alone 16 years later. There may be echoes of Andrew Carnegie in Scrooge’s Scottish surname, but the real Carnegie, unlike the fictional duck, hired other people to do such work for him as soon as he could. What Barks was doing, with his young audience in mind and with remarkable thoroughness and ingenuity, was making the reasons for Scrooge’s attachment to his wealth as concrete as possible. If Scrooge carried gold out of the Klondike himself, then of course he’d care about it.
Many DuckTales episodes were almost verbatim from Barks’ comics, so most of the Uncle Scrooge insights apply to the show, too. That should make those J. Cart. Overanal. purists in the readership rest easier.
The World’s Richest Duck > Catena Ex Situ
1 Comment | 
DuckTales, Scrooge McDuck, ex situ | Tagged: Carl Barks, Klondike, Uncle Scrooge | 
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Posted by The Editor
July 28, 2008
- I’m surprised no one has mentioned this: the lack of biological parents in cartoon shows. Think of all the characters who live with someone other than their parents: Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby living with Uncle Donald then Uncle Scrooge in DuckTales. Gosalyn and Darkwing Duck in Darkwing Duck, Robin and Nightwing living with Batman. Also, Penny and Uncle Gadget. No explanation is given about their parents’ whereabouts. When I was a kid I wondered where they were. I think if cartoon creators have a handle enough to show orphans, they should go the full monty and explain where mom and dad are.
- Contributed by Mark P.
- Yet another common device that cartoon manufacturers use is to add a character to a show that is there solely for the purpose of comic relief (usually, it backfires, though). This character is quite frequently of some other species, &c. than the main character(s). Examples are Slimer in The Real Ghostbusters, Snarf in ThunderCats, Alexander in Josie and The Pussycats, Blip in Space Ghost, Orko in He-Man, Chim-Chim in Speed Racer, Godzuki in Godzilla, and Needler in The Pirates of Dark Water.
- Contributed by The Editor
- What’s the nature of ghosts in The Real Ghostbusters? Are they extra-dimensional critters, traumatic psychic residue, or is the team actually capturing the souls of the deceased with proton lightning and cramming them in a basement nuclear reactor? That seems awfully blasphemous. Perhaps it’s symbolic of people’s willingness to ignore their past, or maybe a commentary on modern urban life being “soulless.”
- Contributed by Blake
5 Comments | 
Batman, Darkwing Duck, DuckTales, Godzilla, He-Man, Inspector Gadget, Josie and The Pussycats, Mini-Analyzations, Space Ghost, Speed Racer, The Pirates of Dark Water, The Real Ghostbusters, Thundercats | Tagged: blasphemy, Chim-chim, Godzuki, orphan | 
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Posted by The Editor
June 8, 2008
- Inspector Gadget is the epitome of the 80’s in one cartoon. You have a police department that isn’t corrupted in the media yet, you have references to old 70’s tv shows (this message will self-destruct), you have the fascination with computers (Penny’s laptop that’s thicker than today’s printers) and robotic stuff (the wonderful Inspector himself), and the fear of a huge, crazy, foreign power (MAD-obviously he’s supposed to represent Russia — look at all of the “agents of MAD” — they’re Russian spies in cartoon format). It’s the 80’s. Not to mention the music.
-Contributed by Bryn D.
- If you will notice in the Disney movie DuckTales: Secret of the Lost Lamp, the animation quality is fantastic at the beginning, but quickly degrades into merely tolerable. Then, at the very end of the movie, the animation quality is quickly back to its original level. Presumably this was an attempt to cut costs and production time while trying to prevent the audience from realizing it.
-Contributed by The Editor
- Ever notice that in G.I. Joe, the shots from Cobra’s lasers are always blue, and the Joes’ are always red? Even if one of the Joes picks up a Cobra laser, the color is still red. Could these colors hold some inner meaning?
-Contributed by Paul J.
- The main characters on Ed, Edd n Eddy on Cartoon Network could represent the ID, Ego, and Superego. Ed is a free spirit who always wants to have fun. Edd “Double-D” is more reserved and nervous and makes the perfect super-ego. Finally, Eddy is the ego, which balances out the other other two.
-Contributed by SDOG1028
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1 Comment | 
DuckTales, Ed Edd n Eddy, G.I. Joe, Inspector Gadget, Mini-Analyzations, villains | Tagged: ego, id, Russian spies, super-ego | 
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Posted by The Editor
